Tag: Network Security

The earliest schemes of cryptography, such as substituting one symbol or character for another or changing the order of characters instead of changing the characters themselves, began thousands of years ago. Since then, various encoding and decoding systems were developed, based on more complex versions of these techniques, for the fundamental purpose of securing messages sent and received in written or electronic forms for all sorts of real world applications.

Every day our children, teachers and administrators log into the network at school. How can you ensure the data travelling across that network is secure from hidden threats and attacks such as ransomware? With SonicWall next-gen firewalls and DPI SSL inspection technology, IT administrators can find threats hidden in encrypted web traffic that cybercriminals don’t want you to discover across your K-12 network.

Times are extremely restless for security teams as they face highly motivated adversaries, and the onslaught of very active and progressive cyber-attacks. Today’s hacking techniques are stealthy, unpredictable in nature and waged by skillful attackers capable of developing innovative ways of circumventing security defenses. One new and more popular way that is becoming a status quo among malware writers today is the malicious use of encryption.

There is no end to the danger of cyber-criminal activities, as long as there is an underground marketplace that makes it almost impossible for authorities to intervene and enforce law and order. We continue to see our adversaries relentlessly going after money by developing and experimenting with different methods and tools against new and existing vulnerabilities, in preparation for the next phase of their business model.

Ransomware has forced organizations to rethink their security architecture. Organizations are increasingly investing in security solutions that provide additional protection of sensitive data, as well as better visibility over network traffic and endpoint activity. According to IDC research, 60% of organizations surveyed indicated that modern endpoint and network security products such as network sandboxes were either a high priority or an extremely high priority over the next 12 months.

Last week I was at one of our sales offices in Utah. I heard an interesting story about how a dentist office called in to ask for threat prevention against ransomware. The dentist office had been affected by ransomware twice in a short period of time. Twice, they paid the ransom to ensure business continuity and customer retention.

The data is still coming in, but it’s looking like consumer spending this holiday season will once again outperform previous years. Multiple research firms including the National Retail Federation (NRF) are predicting a growth in sales over the same period in 2015. Credit card vendor Mastercard is forecasting a 19% increase in online sales over the holidays.